Consultancy

Raven Design can provide higher level training consultancy in all of the services listed and has experience in designing and implementing complete business and technical training systems incorporating the best of commercially viable:

What is Instructional Design

A popular definition of Instructional Design (ID) is the systematic process by which learning and development processes and materials are designed, developed, and delivered.

There are a host of terms used to describe the process of instructional design including, Instructional Systems Design (ISD), instructional technology, Human Performance Technology (HPT), educational technology and curriculum design.

There are also a range of popular methodologies in use including ADDIE, AGILE and RAD.

Raven Design uses a systematic methodology to accurately identify your organisational needs and the essential skill and knowledge requirements of the target audience. This methodology was developed for use in commercial / professional organisations where time is billed in six minute blocks so it had to be lean but effective.

Once the boundaries are understood we map or prototype a solution and discuss the recommended approach with the client. Then, with a clear understanding of both the organisation's and the learners' needs we develop a set of learning strategies that will fully engage the learners and facilitate complete and measurable transfer of the learning to the workplace. Feedback from user testing during and after the build enables us to refine the finished product and guarantee the desired outcome.

What is Training Needs Analysis?

How do you know who has priority needs for training and in what areas of skill and knowledge they might be deficient?

The term 'Training Needs Analysis' (TNA) is used to describe two quite different processes. Primarily it means gathering data about a job / task / role that identifies the essential skills, knowledge and attitudes required for them to be carried out effectively, and whether training is the most effective performance improvement intervention.

The second process often called TNA charts the training needs and current gaps for each employee or occupational stream in relation to each of the identified jobs / tasks / roles.

We can analyse your existing or proposed jobs / tasks / roles and document the essential skills / knowledge and attitudes in a matrix or learning pathway that clearly shows what training needs to be developed and to whom the training should be provided.

What is Performance Gap analysis?

What are your employees currently not doing or achieving that you really need them to do/achieve?

In a modern business environment you cannot afford to provide broad brush, hit or miss training strategies. We will look at your corporate goals; the current performance of your employees and the ideal level of performance that will meet your production and economic needs, and provide a plan that optimises your investment.

One of the major advantages of using a proven, systematic methodology for design and development of training is the focus it brings to selecting the most suitable media or delivery / assessment method for each essential skill and knowledge component. Combining training media in the right way enhances the learning and retention potential very effectively and makes the whole experience more fun and interesting.

What we look for are highly interactive learning activities that engage the learner by a) encouraging them to take responsibility for their learning, and b) providing them with carefully planned and structured learning activities that require them to explore and make decisions about new concepts and principles in the context of their given role.

Depending on the content, a full blended learning program might incorporate some or all of the following:

e-Learning Development

Raven Design is an award winning specialist in highly interactive e-Learning programs. We have experience using more than fourteen different e-Learning development tools including the most currently used tools such as Lectora, Captivate, Articulate and Authorware Professional.

Our e-Learning programs are designed to challenge the learner using common, workplace problem solving activities and practise environments that simulate the real world of work. For example, we developed a program for NSW Health that was designed to teach Medical Terminology to clinical support personnel in a health environment such as office workers, ward clerks, pharmacy assistants, adult day care workers, secretaries and allied health assistants and more.

The e-learning was a major component of a blended program and provided learning activities chunked into sections covering each of the thirteen recognised body systems. The activities enabled the learner to break down hundreds of common medical terms into their component parts and to build words from given definitions. This program won the coveted Director General of Health Award for its comprehensive and innovative approach.

What is Gamification?

The on-line Oxford Dictionaries give the definition, "The application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service". In recent times the term has been used to describe a wide interpretation within the training industry.

We have created fun and engaging practice and repetition activities for Casinos, Defence, Health and Financial Services that keep the learner on topic and improve their long term ability to perform consistently at the required levels.

Procedure Analysis and Documentation

If your organisation operates in a high risk enterprise and you don't have current documentation for all your critical procedures and tasks, you are clearly at risk should something go wrong.

We can take that worry away by critically analysing your operating procedures and writing them up in an easy-to-follow format that highlights the steps and the order in which they must be done; the safety aspects that relate to each step; and the quality controls that you require for excellence in delivery.

Evaluation

How do you know if your training is working? Is a post training happy sheet the best indicator of a training module well done?

There are four key pieces of evaluation data that a business owner should be checking:

Formative Evaluation - provides an assurance that the content is current, complete and accurate, and that the proposed instructional strategy is sound

Summative Evaluation - has the learner correctly interpreted and applied the required skills and knowledge?

Long Term Program Evaluation - how completely, and for how long, have learners transferred the required skills and knowledge to the workplace?

Continuous Improvement - provides a process by which all available data e.g. comments from trainers, LMS data and post course evaluation sheets, is fed back into the program at pre-determined intervals in order to correct, update and refine the program

Raven Design incorporates formative and summative evaluation decisions for each of the identified learning strategies as a matter of course in any project. If the client wishes a formal long term evaluation plan and / or continuous improvement program we will design a suitable process.

On-line Assessment / Reassessment Systems

Could you rely on your assessment process under the scrutiny of a legal case? Does your assessment / reassessment process use up too much of your training team's time and energy?

We have developed a highly effective methodology for delivering secure and valid assessment / reassessments that can be accessed on-line and which enable you to analyse background data to identify areas of weakness and poor understanding.

Facilitator / Learner Guides

Do you rely on technical experts to deliver your training? Is your training delivery consistent across the organisation? If you have put the time and money into understanding your training needs, why waste it delivering an unstructured knowledge dump that is different for each group of trainees.

Every training activity should be based on a sound platform of key messages and targeted skills and knowledge improvement activities. Facilitator and Learner Guides ensure that no matter who is presenting the training, it is delivered in an appropriately planned and sequenced way, every time.

Program Redesign

Do you have old PowerPoint presentations that you want turned into e-Learning?

Is your face-to-face training too didactic or too long?

Do you need to upgrade your e-Learning from an older authoring tool?

Our Instructional Designers can re-design your existing training and make it more engaging, interactive and effective. We recently completed a redesign project for a major financial services organisation in which we took two weeks of back-to-back, didactic, PowerPoint driven classroom training, and converted it to a three week (part-time) interactive, discovery based learning process that facilitates near transfer of learned skills and knowledge to the workplace.

We hold a range of authoring licences and can convert or re-build your old e-Learning, for example, moving from Authorware to Lectora or Captivate.

Training System Auditing

Significant cost savings, increased Return On Investment (ROI)) and improved on-the-job performance can all be yours as a result of conducting an independent review of your organisation's training methodologies, programs and systems.

Our systematic review process is based on years of industry experience and knowledge of current best practice in learning and assessment.

Training Video Scripting and Production

Raven Design's founder and lead designer is also a trained actor and an experienced writer of training video scripts.

Using video enables us to demonstrate desired skills and processes in a way that the learner can see the whole process performed correctly, and chunk it down into digestible bits. Learning step-by-step in a safe controlled environment provides certainty for the organisation and confidence for the learner.

Raven Design is not just another training chop-house. If you want e-Learning but are happy with PowerPoint style page turners, or if you want didactic, lecture style, face-to-face training, there are plenty of other people out there who can do it for you. We create engaging, interactive training materials which directly target the training or performance issues your organisation needs to resolve or change, and we do it for the same cost as many of the so-called rapid development contractors.